The present invention relates to user-interactive computer supported display technology, and particularly to such user-interactive systems and methods which provide interactive users with user friendly interfaces for database management and access.
The 1990""s decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. This advance has been even further accelerated by the extensive consumer and business involvement in the Internet over the past few years. As a result of these changes it seems as if virtually all aspects of human endeavor in the industrialized world requires human/computer interfaces. There is a need to make computer directed activities accessible to people who, up to a few years ago were computer illiterate or, at best, computer indifferent.
Thus, there is continuing demand for display interfaces to computers and networks which improve the ease of use for the interactive user to access functions and data from the computer. With desktop-like interfaces including windows and icons, as well as three-dimensional virtual reality simulating interfaces, the computer industry has been working hard to-fulfill such interface needs. However, in the area of database management, interfaces to the databases appear to be formidable obstacles to a great many users who would have considerable needs for data access. Of course, database access and management historically is one of the original primary computer functions, and, as such, it is full of language and functions developed and communicated between computer professionals. As a result, database management and access may be somewhat esoteric and foreboding to the new computer users in businesses and personal computer situations in which they most benefit from the development of and access to databases. Terms such as relational databases (RDBMS) structured query language (SQL) searches have put off such users. Less sophisticated users find it very difficult to frame SQL search queries out of the relatively complex language. As a result, except for some limited access to databases through spreadsheets, the bulk of new computer users have shown a reluctance to venture into database organization and database searching. Accordingly, the computer industries are trying to address the need to make interfaces for database organization less foreboding and more user friendly.
The copending patent application referenced above furnishes one solution to the above needs by providing a data processor controlled interactive display interface through which the user may easily access stored search queries to the database and then initiate selected searches executed by such queries. The interactive interface includes a displayed tree having at least one root node representative of a view into a table from said database and a plurality of subnodes under said root node, each subnode representative of a stored search query for said table view.
The present invention provides for the formulation and presentation of a displayed tree of queries of the copending application in a manner enabling user-interactive rearrangement of the tree. The invention involves initially interactively arranging a displayed tree having a plurality of selectable nodes, each node representative of a stored search query, arranged in a hierarchical order indicative of the order of searching by said query. An interactive user input is enabled to rearrange said tree to a different hierarchical order, and the resulting rearranged tree with the different hierarchical order is displayed. In this manner, different users of said interface may access data from said database in an order relative to their respective needs. As with the above-mentioned copending application, it may be most advantageously used with queries in SQL and in relational databases. In such databases that are organized in columns, the order of searching would be the order in which said columns are accessed during the search.